Audio 4:09
Aus scientist snaps previously unknown mammals in PNG

Rachel CarbonellUpdated
Wed 25 Jun 2014, 9:32 AM AEST

One of Australia's first crowd-funded scientific expeditions may have uncovered several new species of mammal. An ecologist from Melbourne raised $20,000 to document rare animals in remote Papua New Guinea. But it appears he has also photographed as many as three new species of previously unidentified mammals.

Transcript

CHRIS UHLMANN: One of Australia's first crowd-funded scientific expeditions might have uncovered several new species of mammal.

An ecologist from Melbourne raised $20,000 to document rare animals in remote Papua New Guinea. It was hoped the camera traps the money bought might capture the first images of critically endangered tree kangaroos in the wild. But, it appears they have also snapped up to three new species of previously unidentified mammals.

Rachel Carbonell reports.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The Torricelli mountain range in the remote north-west of Papua New Guinea is rich with bird calls in the mornings. The rainforest is teeming with animal life. But some of the more iconic species here are now very rarely seen.

Two kinds of tree kangaroo are critically endangered.

Jim Thomas is the director of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance.

JIM THOMAS: Well the tree kangaroos are the biggest native mammal in New Guinea so they're the most sought after food source.

In the remote areas, the bush is everyone's supermarket so previously people would go out and hunt the animals. And because the tenkile and the weimang are big animals, you know, they're the prize. So hunting pressure has caused a decline of these animals.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Jim and his wife Jean have spent more than a decade working with villages to protect the tenkile and weimang tree kangaroos and their habitat through education, alternative food sources and water programs.

JIM THOMAS: Once people had tangible benefits in their villages and realised that we're here to help them, that was the reminder not to kill these tree kangaroos, because they were hanging on by a thread when we first got in. The tenkile was maybe at 100 animals.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Until recently, there's been little scientific proof of just how successful that work has been. Deakin University ecologist Euan Ritchie used crowd funding to raise $20,000 to partner with the Conservation Alliance, buy 40 camera traps and travel to the Torricelli mountains to record what was there - in particular, the famed endangered tree kangaroos.

EUAN RITCHIE: For the two rarer species, which is the weimang and the tenkile tree kangaroos, we recorded the first camera trap images of the weimang ever. And that's only the second time to my knowledge that the tenkile has been recorded

And to put it in perspective, particularly for the tenkile, there's probably about five or six times as many giant pandas in the world as there is the tenkile tree kangaroo.

So to get multiple images now of the tenkile tree kangaroo is really, really significant and really exciting for us because it's demonstration, particularly for the Tenkile Conservation Alliance, that their work with communities, the local people, is actually having an effect, a positive effect.

So the tenkile numbers are probably actually increasing and so their long-term, you know, survival if you like is looking quite good. So it's really, really exciting to get those images.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The expedition also yielded some unexpected results.

EUAN RITCHIE: We certainly got an image of what we think is a new species of sort of small kangaroo if you like, dorcopsulus wallaby. You know sort of think small dog-size wallaby if you like. And there's also things like bandicoots and rodents that don't appear to be in any of the books that we know about, so species that we think exist.

To actually confirm that of course we'll have to go back there one day and actually catch these animals and get them in the hand and take measurements and DNA samples, so that's for further down the track. But there's a whole range of species that are almost certain to be new to science and that are also new to that region.

RACHEL CARBONELL: What does indicate that you're going out there in 2014 and potentially uncovering new species of mammal?

EUAN RITCHIE: It indicates that Papua New Guinea is remote (laughs) and it has incredibly valuable forests and habitats. So we know right throughout that region that it's considered to be a global biodiversity hotspot. So there's a whole range, probably hundreds and hundreds of species, I mean not just in mammals but the birds, the insects, all sorts of species that are probably unknown to western science, if you like.

So we've really got to preserve those habitats because they're really valuable.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The Tenkile Conservation Alliance has about 50 villages signed up to its hunting moratorium. It's now working with the PNG government to legislate to have the area protected.

Jim Thomas:

JIM THOMAS: So we've been working thoroughly with the Papua New Guinea government to have this area locked up from logging, mining , oil palm and the likes, so that it's protected.